When William Patrick Hitler, Der Führer’s nephew, enlisted in the U.S. Navy on March 6, 1944, the recruiting officer who signed him up was named Hess.

Caring for the 3,000-4,000 horses that formed part of William the Conqueror’s army in 1066 required some 8,000-12,000 horseshoes and about 75,000 nails a month, for about 8 tons of iron.

When Duke Charles of Parma's Spanish forces besieged the Austrian-held Castel Nuovo in Naples in 1734, he was so careful not to inflict harm on the city – which, after all, he intended to rule as king – that one observer wrote, "The besiegers . . . make signs with a handkerchief when they prepare to fire and they warn the inhabitants to return to their houses."

About 56-percent of all new rails used by Soviet railroads during World War II were supplied by the United States.

The two seniormost commanders in World War I both celebrated their birthdays on October 2nd; Germany’s Generalfeldmarschal Paul Ludwig Hans von Beneckendorf von Hindenburg, who had been born in 1847, and the Allies’ Marechel de France Ferdinand Foch, born in 1851.

Reportedly, having captured an Italian MAS boat – a type of motor torpedo craft – during World War II, the British commissioned her in the Royal Navy as HMS Xmas

In 1740 the Spanish Army “boarded” the 117 officers and 453 non-coms of its garrison in Mexico, which left only 80 of the former and 130 of the latter still on active duty, the rest being discharged for age, ineptitude, corruption, health, or other reasons.

In August of 1914, when King Albert of the Belgians asked why Germany had invaded his country, Kaiser Wilhelm replied " . . . it was with the most friendly intentions toward Belgium"